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Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

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Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#81

Post by objclxt »

jamiequint wrote: post #59
its_so_on wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember where I was five years ago and what Facebook was saying, but if you look at this graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_popularity.PNG at 2007, and remember what Facebook is (since day 1), it's pretty easy to see Facebook making the argument that it will be used by pretty much everyone, everywhere. It's pretty obvious that pinterest has no such claim. That is one such basis. Other such base…

You're being pedantic about the 5 year thing, if anything Pinterest's current growth outpaces that of Facebook. At 2 years old they're sitting at somewhere around 30M users, even Facebook didn't grow that quickly (per your own graph). In addition, Pinterest sits much closer to transactions than Facebook does. Facebook currently makes around $5/user/year, just given Pinterest's proximity to the transaction its relativ…

I don't think the OP is being pedantic: you're wrong to compare the first two years of Facebook with Pinterest.

For one thing, Facebook was .edu limited for its first two years, so its growth was constrained. Rather than that, look at Facebook's growth from 2007-2009.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#82

Post by robryan »

jarek wrote: post #76
runako wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we may be talking about two different sets of numbers. It sounds like you're quoting GOOG's penetration into US (or OECD) total population. (I'm guessing from the percentages.) I'm saying that the aggregate number of people using the Internet has grown much, much faster. I don't have exact numbers handy, but it's certainly possible that the total Internet population has grown more than 100% over this period.…

Total number of people using the internet seems like a questionable metric for valuating U.S.-based internet startups, most of which (understandably given their business stage) focus primarily on the U.S. and maybe OECD for feature development, user base growth, and monetization. It's currently a bit laughable to imagine Pinterest monetizing their Nigerian and Indonesian user bases. Is there any particular datapoint…

People are also far more comfortable spending online now, this helps both in directly monetizing users an the amount people will pay for ads.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#83

Post by madaxe »

stroboskop wrote: post #56
cletus wrote: post #5

Well I'm going to head off the predictable and boring "bubble" comments and say this: Pinterest has real value and a clear path to monetization through affiliate and/or advertising revenue. It's really a stupidly simple idea (essentially scrapbooking on the Web) executed incredibly well. Is it worth $1.5B? I don't know. I would say it's definitely worth more than Instagram for whatever that's worth (not a lot). I gue…

Well I'm going to head off the predictable and boring "bubble" comments and say this Saying that predictably gets you upvotes for sure. But it's not about "bubble" comments being "boring" or not. The question is whether bubble claims have any substance. If they have, the bubble won't simply go away just because some people wish it would. Is it worth $1.5B? I don't know. I would say it's definitely worth more than ...…

Bingo. Valuations should be based on.... drumroll profits and retained value - EBITDA. When we started basing valuations on arbitrary "well if facebook are $100bn, X must be $y", we set sail for another glorious future of people losing their shirts.

Frankly, it just pisses me off - we're a profitable business which has grown 150% YOY for 6 years, and our value is barely £3M, based on our profits and growth. Why an infant company with little discernable revenue should have an astronomical value is beyond me.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#84

Post by prawn »

jacktea65 wrote: post #12

Pinterest got this valuation because their story is that it's related to ecommerce. The thing is it doesn't seem like that's turning out to be very true at all. It seems like what has made Pinterest really successful is that it's basically 9gag/tumblr photo/meme sharing. If you look at their content it's mostly of that type. Products seem to be a relatively tiny portion of the content. I'm sure they can make a nice c…

This link was posted further up: http://www.shopify.com/blog/6058268-how-pinterest-drives-eco...

You should have a read and see if you change your mind.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#85

Post by heyitsnick »

stroboskop wrote: post #56
cletus wrote: post #5

Well I'm going to head off the predictable and boring "bubble" comments and say this: Pinterest has real value and a clear path to monetization through affiliate and/or advertising revenue. It's really a stupidly simple idea (essentially scrapbooking on the Web) executed incredibly well. Is it worth $1.5B? I don't know. I would say it's definitely worth more than Instagram for whatever that's worth (not a lot). I gue…

Well I'm going to head off the predictable and boring "bubble" comments and say this Saying that predictably gets you upvotes for sure. But it's not about "bubble" comments being "boring" or not. The question is whether bubble claims have any substance. If they have, the bubble won't simply go away just because some people wish it would. Is it worth $1.5B? I don't know. I would say it's definitely worth more than ...…

Sounds to me like he just wants to add something different to the discussion rather that the inevitable "it's a bubble", and for that it made an interesting comment that deserves an upvote.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#86

Post by akrymski »

Sites like this seem to indicate there are tonnes of fake accounts on Pinterest: www.buyrealpinterestfollowers.com

My guess is that the majority of accounts are fake, and most posts are uploaded by spammers. However, this may be not much of a problem - like the HN / Digg / Reddit community the core Pinterest community is enough to rise the "good" stuff to the top I guess. If "social filtering" does work better than Google's algorithmic filtering and can't be gamed - Pinterest will succeed.

In some ways Amazon has had similar functionality for a while, called the "wish-list". They could easily have build something similar based on their existing data.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#87

Post by frabcus »

moocow01 wrote: post #37
ricardobeat wrote: post #28

Serious question: how does a company like pinterest spend $100 million? That's enough money to keep SpaceX running for an year, hundreds of engineers building space rockets. They don't seem to have, or need, a sales force. They hire mostly developers and designers, and I imagine having hundreds of them isn't of much use unless their service will change radically in the future. Ideas?

I'd imagine a notable chunk is likely going to servers and infrastructure costs and another chunk will be reserved for current or potential legal expenditures. But yes I agree its hard to understand how they are able to put all of that money to work - probably a lot goes into an "emergency fund".

Acquiring competitors, international expansion, a team to do deals with ecommerce sites.

Re: Pinterest Raises $100 MM at $1.5Bn Valuation

#90

Post by arethuza »

madaxe wrote: post #83
stroboskop wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm going to head off the predictable and boring "bubble" comments and say this Saying that predictably gets you upvotes for sure. But it's not about "bubble" comments being "boring" or not. The question is whether bubble claims have any substance. If they have, the bubble won't simply go away just because some people wish it would. Is it worth $1.5B? I don't know. I would say it's definitely worth more than ...…

Bingo. Valuations should be based on.... drumroll profits and retained value - EBITDA. When we started basing valuations on arbitrary "well if facebook are $100bn, X must be $y", we set sail for another glorious future of people losing their shirts. Frankly, it just pisses me off - we're a profitable business which has grown 150% YOY for 6 years, and our value is barely £3M, based on our profits and growth. Why an in…

Valuations are based on what someone else might pay - and they might pay a few billion for Pinterest.
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